The Lost Weeks

The 13th of March through the 24rd of March

Life got busy during these two weeks and I neglected the blog.  Because I am cramming an entire US law school semester (15 weeks) into roughly 7 weeks things got wild.  I had a lot of days where I had a class that started at 8am and my last class would end after 9 (or 21:00).  Unlike Alabama, which has a set hour for lunch, classes here go all day so out of that 13 or 14 hours of classes I might have only two 30 minute breaks and two 15 minute breaks.  It was wild.

In the middle of all that we finally got to go see the wall that Israel built around the West Bank.  It was pretty wild to go 15 or 20 minutes out of town and see a military fence.  (Think the Korean DMZ.)  The IDF passed us on patrols several times while we were out there and at one point a van full of people drove by and yelled at us.  Interesting experience.  The legal situation in the West Bank is really complicated because under international law Israel is not allowed to change the law that was applicable when it occupied the territory (or liberated it depending on your view).  So that means that the Ottoman Land Code from the 1800s applies, as does Jordanian law at the time of the war, with a final layer of Israeli Military Law.  Crazy complicated.

Seeing the Arab villages, which were very destitute, so close to the gleaming, bustling, modern metropolis of Tel Aviv was really a stark contrast.  Very sad to see.  However, also no different than what you would find in any modern city like New Orleans or Charlotte where a distance of literally two blocks can separate million dollar houses from $15k hovels. 

We also go to see some olive groves, which I thought was really cool, even though I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who got excited about seeing them.

Purim was also during what I'm dubbing "The Lost Weeks" to be melodramatic.  Purim is a pretty fantastic holiday.  We had a costume party at my friend Dafna's place, which was an absolutely incredible house.  I dressed up as an Israeli and the costume was a hit.  I wore a fitted tshirt that was very Jersey Shore/Afflicted style, gel in my hair, my most European jeans and carried my phone around yelling into it in Hebrew (Israelis are pretty loud on the phone, and it's hilarious).  I found out the next day that I actually convinced one of my Israeli friends that I had learned Hebrew.  After the party some of the Israelis took me and Chang to a club in one of the southern suburbs of Tel Aviv.  I'm pretty sure they just invite us because we can use our American IDs to get into clubs (remind me to describe the free-for-all that is getting into Israeli clubs) and because girls will talk to Americans so they just throw me to the wolves a la How I Met Your Mother (this clip is remarkably, nay eerily, what it's like).

The next day, after going to bed at 3 or 4, I popped up at 8 to get ready to go to Jerusalem.  Some friends of my parents knew an Israeli couple who lived south of Tel Aviv.  As is typical of the gracious hospitality of Israelis, they found out from my parents friends that I was here and called to invite me to go with them to Jerusalem so they could show me around.  It was an incredible trip.  They picked me up, drove me to Rishon LeTzion where they live and from there we struck out across Israel to Jerusalem.  To give you an idea, we drove from the literal extreme west edge of the country to the extreme east border in roughly 45 minutes.  Along the way we passed forts from the Israel/Jordanian war complete with old armored vehicles.  We got there in time to have a breakfast picnic on a hillside overlooking the Temple Mount and the fabled Dome of the Rock, arguably one of the most recognizable sights in the entire world.  Mrs. Nadav had cooked jachnun which is a traditional Yemmini dish that is outstanding (especially when made by Mrs. Nadav).  It's a pastry that you eat with tomato and pesto sauces.  So good!  From there we wondered around the Old City and toured the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.  It's supposedly the site of Christ's crucifixion and tomb.  Seeing it was partly incredibly moving and partly heartbreaking.  It's very moving to see what is at the very least, ground where Jesus actually walked and is probably relatively undisturbed since that time.  On the other hand, people were taking trinkets out and rubbing them on the ground (hoping that the good luck will transfer from the stone/dirt to the trinket), prostrating themselves on the ground, kissing the stones, etc. and it breaks my heart to see people worship the creation not the Creator.  After the Church of the Holy Sepulcher we went to the Western Wall.  It was an incredible honor to be allowed into the holiest site of a different religion, even if we do worship the same God I felt very honored and trusted to be there.  It was so amazing to be able to pray at the Wall where people have been praying to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Exodus 3:5-6 / Acts 3:13) for thousands of years.  I felt very much like Moses on holy ground.  We spent the rest of the day wondering the old city markets, which were fun, before heading back to Rishon to get an incredible hamburger.  All in all an incredible day.

Also during this hectic period Aharon and Elika Barak invited Daniel and I over for dinner.  You really need  to read his Wikipedia page because the dude is a rockstar.  He was attorney general of Israel, one of the negotiators of Israel's landmark peace treaty with Egypt (the first Arab country to recognize Israel as a state) and then president (chief justice) of the Israeli Supreme Court.  His wife was vice president of their supreme labor court.  They really are incredible.  Did I mention that he developed a doctrine called proportionality that every supreme court in the world (except the US of course) now uses?  Yeah rockstar.  Best part of it: he and his wife are incredibly nice people.  We had a lovely time with them.  She's a fantastic cook and prepared a lot of local dishes for us, and they were all really good (and organic!).

I probably couldn't get away with ending the story there because before we got to dinner we wound up in the wrong town.  Aharon called me to give me directions and I wrote down his address and when I put it into Google Maps later it showed the address in a nearby suburb so that's where I told our taxi driver to take us.  Only that was wrong.  Basically, imagine that a cab driver picked us up in downtown Birmingham and drove us to Gardendale only to discover that the dinner was actually in Homewood.  So embarrassing!  Thankfully they were so gracious, we were only a couple minutes late (which is on-time for the Middle East) and Daniel gets to hang that over my head for the rest of our lives.